


loopy cursive

by scorpionGrass



Series: you can’t put a price on peace (of mind) [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: 88 Letters, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24453604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpionGrass/pseuds/scorpionGrass
Summary: Aerith sits in her garden, surrounded by her flowers, and writes her first letter to Zack.
Relationships: Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Series: you can’t put a price on peace (of mind) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1363234
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	loopy cursive

In the weeks between Zack’s missions, the ones she spent alone in the slums of Sector Five taking care of her flowers and making sure the local kids weren’t getting into too much trouble, Aerith talks to the Planet.

She sits in the grass, in a small clearing in the garden where she hadn’t planted any seeds, and pulls out a sheaf of paper from her bag. Nibelheim, Zack told her. That’s where he’d be. He wasn’t supposed to tell her, but she’d pressed and needled him for information, anything, until he caved, laughing the whole time.

“Some backwater town,” he’d told her. “Called, uh, Nibelheim? Yeah.”

“Like Gongaga?” she asked.

“Yeah. Middle-of-nowhere, but there’s a Reactor,” he grinned. “Just like Gongaga.”

A valley town out in the country, with a clear view of the blue, blue sky and all of the stars in it. The mountain ranges were full of dangerous monsters, but she’d surmised that the mission was really about the Reactor there. Shin-Ra didn’t care much about the world save for good areas to suck the Lifestream out of the Planet’s veins. It would be no different with Nibelheim.

Aerith wonders what it would be like to be that close to a well of mako, to the Lifestream. If maybe the voices of the Planet would be even louder. Not that she wants to find out. She’s not about to ask the Turks for a tour.

“You think he’s okay?” she asks the flowers around her. The continue to sway in the breeze, petals ruffling. She smiles. “Yeah. You’re right.”

Aerith can tell, like a thread of his energy is tied to her soul. Or, that’s what it feels like, the same way she just knew when her mother had drawn her last. The way she’d known Elmyra’s husband had passed.  _ Uncanny _ , Elmyra called it, when she’d thought Aerith wasn’t listening.

But the walls of their house are thin and always have been.

She pulls a pen out of her bag too, tapping the end against the paper. She’s never written a letter before, but she’s already asked Tseng to deliver them for her so she can’t exactly back out now. He’s been coming round the church more often these days, but she only knows because she can sense him there. For all of the Turks’ stealth, they have nothing on a Cetra.

Aerith remembers his face when she’d rounded the corner of a pew to find him, shock on his features for barely a second before smoothing out into his usual controlled, neutral smile.

“Of course,” he’d said, no doubt part of his orders to keep her happy and within arm’s reach.

Sometimes, it works in her favour.

Aerith stares at the blank page, not sure what to say, what she should put in a letter that Tseng might read before delivery. She grins at the idea of writing something racy, the kind of thing that would make regulars at the Honeybee Inn blush, and tries to imagine Tseng being embarrassed. It’s tough to get an image since he’s always so proper, but Aerith giggles at the thought anyway.

The afternoon passes slowly, sun drifting in and out of the clouds, and Aerith has accomplished nothing except for the doodles of flowers in the margins of the paper and a “Dear Zack” on the top left corner in practiced loopy cursive. The kind of handwriting that’s elegant and pretty, except her version is stilted and awkward.

She debates whether to try writing the rest of the letter like that. It’d be good practice.

Finally, Aerith starts writing. Zack isn’t the kind of person who’s good with words either, so she figures whatever she writes will only be met with a smile. She misses his smile, bright and mischievous, so she tells him about the flowers, updates him on the exploits of the kids at the Leaf House who he’d befriended, and informs him that Tseng has stopped tying his hair up in a ponytail.

Folding the paper in thirds, she’s almost excited to hand it off to Tseng. Almost excited to see him spying on her at the church while she waters her flowers and hums the tunes from the jukebox at the diner, if only because he’s her way to Zack.

(She kinda hopes Tseng reads the letter too, with her recommendation to trim his split ends.)

**Author's Note:**

> who else thinks zack meeting the kids at leaf house and getting to visit their hideout would be A+ wholesome content


End file.
